The First Days Being My Own Boss

I know I go on about it all the time, but the majority of these bloggers out there that have all those fancy photos, thousands of followers and videos of them looking pretty, whilst they tell you that you can do it too, don’t provide you with what you need to know.

They, in my opinion, don’t provide you with the ‘oops’ moments and the moments where they are not so fancy and pretty because they have the bloody reputation of excellence to uphold, where they must be seen to be successful, so they can sell you their ‘Learn How To Be As Successful As Me’ courses.

I fell for a course a few years back and this lady didn’t half rabbit on about earning that 6 figure sum, raising your income and lowering your working hours whilst you travelled and lived your dream!

She had me hooked at first, but about halfway through I realised, she is telling me to do this, this, oh and that, but not giving the ‘how to’ instruction. It was as if she was keeping you at arm's length.

I’ll not mention names, but I will warn you that a lot of people have seen how to profit from unknowing dreamers and will sell to you without you realising that you got your card out and pressed BUY! They say love is blind, but sometimes it’s the dream chasers.

That is partly the reason I gave up on the fancy pants influencers and pretty Instagrams and went for someone with experience and who admits he went wrong and you won’t see him swishing his hair (partly because he is bald, sorry Niall!) on a mountainside asking you to swipe up to live your dream. He will tell you it takes work, you get out what you put in and tells you HOW to move forward - You will need to check out my previous post if you wanna get more info on Niall!

Or on the other hand, you can have a read of what I write and get up to for free and take it upon yourself to get informed too! You won’t have to spend money, only time!

Tax Resident In The UK

Ok ok, rant over! I know, I don’t half babble on but it is a subject that triggers me because I really do believe there are people out there that suffer each day in the job they do or feel trapped in the office they are obligated to sit in, even if they have finished their work!

They would probably like their job much more if they could just pick up their laptop when they’d had enough and head on down to the nearest cafe for a coffee to work from there. I am sure productivity would hit the roof.

Also, if those big bosses took into consideration the good old Parkinson’s Law of "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" Then, they could shorten the hours and pay more because of the massive productivity boost.

That all being said, if you have read my last post RIGHT, I AM MY OWN BOSS! BUT, WHAT'S NEXT? You would know that we sorted out a few things. (I feel like I should quiz you on them to make sure you read it) Once we had sorted them, we were ready for the next steps. Now, we were excited to get going, but our friend Sam told us that Giuseppe had to spend more time in the UK to become tax resident, so we had to make a quick fix!

See? Not as easy and dreamy as they make it look, there are hurdles along the way! To be honest, for me this was a small blessing in disguise because I was just about to start my training for the company I was working with and having a few home comforts around was nice!

We thought with our new found freedom, we could work in cafes around the city every day. Grabbing a cappuccino and a quick bite like all those hip young 'ens these days, and sit at our tables working away like we had all the freedom in the world!

Now, don’t get me wrong we can most certainly do that, but we found out very quickly that this would become quite a blow financially! You will see all the fancy pants doing it every day because they are at the stage where the big bucks are coming in. But, when you are just starting out, you might want to make it a few times a week or cut back on the snacks you order.

THE MATHS (Bear with me on this, not my strongest point)

Ok, so we went ahead and did some that math stuff that is supposed to help you figure out everything! I mean, at this moment we are just learning to fly, right? Kind of like Petrie! You remember Petrie?

Ok so, let's say you work 5 days a week and you have to get a nice cappuccino, Now, I have gone ahead here and done some proppa maths for the first time since I left school! (Usually, I leave the math to Giuseppe because Giuseppe always knows) So listen carefully!

I have taken into consideration cappuccino prices across quite a few cafes and found the mean of these prices to use in my example here (I know you are impressed! I am too!)

So, let’s get back to it. With 5 days a week and a cappuccino at the average price of £2.19 Which will bring you to an average of £10.95. Then, spread that over the month you're talking over £40. Which, at this point doesn’t sound too bad!

But we all know that one of a few things happen when you are in that cafe for 4 to 5 hours per day:

You either crumble in the guilt of being there too long and feel you need to buy a snack or another drink (more often than not!)

You have been there long enough and you get to the point where you want another drink or another snack and think “ah another coffee won’t hurt” (more often than not)

You have been in that cafe now and you think, “hmm with my new freedom I could change cafes now”. Then off you pop to another place to pay for another drink or snack (yes, more often than not)

Without thinking, you double your monthly spending right away! I have done them all and just one of the above will bump up the monthly budget considerably. EEK!!!

Shared Offices

So, off we went to divulge a new plan and we came up with something that we thought was a great idea! We thought of share offices! It would be a monthly cost that wouldn’t fluctuate and would help us in avoiding doubling or tripling the costs because of coffee (and those nice cakes they used to put out) intake!

We found a place in Sheffield which offers us a little flexibility (we thought) because we told them that we were in Sheffield for just over a month and it would be around £80 per month and all you can drink with coffee and tea! (and two months deposit) Not forgetting the perk of having England's biggest indoor office slide inside!

I thought it would be a good Idea, and it might work for you, but I learnt a few things that made me think that it just isn't quite for me.

There was always someone...

shouting into a headset trying to do business like they think that the hole in the mic so tiny that normal volumes won't enter it.

Someone who uses all the coffee cups instead of refilling their own because they clearly weren't disciplined as a child.

others taking up the work desks with their McDonalds lunches and talking about how much they hate working in an office all day

The cleaner makes a bee-line for your table, sticking the loudest vacuum on and only vacuuming around your table whilst you are on a call.

Then, to top it off, I paid all that money and I wasn’t allowed to use the slide!!

(That's us in the shared office!)

To be honest, it could be a good idea to find a shared office if you don’t want to go mad on spending and you would like to be around people every day, but it is also good to know that once you work for yourself you will have to stay strong and make yourself head on over to the office!

If one week you just cannot be bothered to go to the office, you can work from home, which is fine, but careful of that downward spiral where the 'cannot be bothered today' feeling spreads to the whole week! This will then mean you are paying for a space you aren’t using (Yep I paid for a month and think I went about 5 times). Oops,

Of course, the choice is yours, (different strokes for different folks and all that), but I think it is good to make you aware of this, especially if you are just starting out and your income isn’t consistent.

I also tell you this stuff because I want you to see that it isn’t all ‘fine and dandy’ all the time, sometimes you make a few mistakes, pick yourself up again and crack on!

Nope, none of the people you follow on Instagram made it to where they are overnight, even though they make it seem that way. Not many people would buy into something knowing that they would have to do most of the work themselves and it won’t be super easy.

Let's Crack On Shall We?

We quit the shared office pretty quickly, and lost half of our deposit doing so, oops! But, we were on to better things and we had decided that to keep the cost down, we would need to calm down with our new sense of freedom!

I mean, if you had been locked in an office for most of your working life, then you were liberated from that prison, you would go wild too at first! You would want to be out and about, changing places, drinking coffee with a view, eating cake, ordering lunch and enjoying your new found liberty!

But, as we soon learnt, that breaks the bank! We decided that working from home most days and treating ourselves when needed would be a better plan. So, we alternate now. sometimes I work from bed, or in the kitchen whilst I cook, maybe I’ll put my feet up and work on the sofa or I will go out and treat myself in a cafe of my own choice! Bloody lovely!

That is the way I would suggest you work it! It provides you with the flexibility, freedom and costs less, so you can use that money on something a little special like booking your next trip!

Our Time Had Finally Come!

We had booked our first trip! We were finally doing this for real and it was extremely exciting (there was a lot of Chandler dancing going on!)

Words couldn’t express the feeling of leaving all ties behind, we now had no fixed rent to pay or those horrible electricity and gas bills the grown-ups have, no car to pay off or other bills to worry about! We just had to concentrate on covering the necessities

Food and water

A place to stay

How to travel around

A bit of Insurance here and there

Some digital nomads or travellers are happy to just set off and see where they find themselves. I am not too fussy, but I would like at least some degree of comfort and security otherwise I would just be a ‘right mardy bum’ (Yorkshire for very grumpy)

With the above covered, we were off!

There I am, all happy in my flip-flops (no need to comment how small my feet are, thank you), waiting for a train to take me to the life I had always dreamed of! Now, I am sure you are thinking what is going on with the two bags?

Well, I will get more into packing and what you might need at a later date, but to give you a rundown of what you are seeing here. I have two backpacks (well I guess one is a front pack now, but don't be so picky about it alright?) primarily because I wouldn’t want to put my laptop on the big bag and have the weight of my shoes and clothes squish it.

But, it is great to have all your clothes, shoes, toiletries and all that jazz in the back and then riding up front with you, you have all your valuables, this way you can keep an eye on them, you can pop your mobile, money, laptop, all the chargers and more in there, you know that they are safe and there is no bloody, little pickpocket sneaking your stuff away whilst you wait for the train!

Not to mention, when you get too hot you can stick your jumper in the stretchy bit at the front! See? Proppa useful!

We were ready, we had everything we needed and finally got Giuseppe sorted out with his extra time in the UK to make sure he is eligible to pay tax here. Really strange in my opinion because if I was a country and Giuseppe came up to me and said “Ciao!” (he’s Italian) “I want to pay you my tax every year, without you even having to ask” (In an Italian accent) I don’t think I would say “Ehyup! No, you will have to stay at least 90 days here before I will consider your offer of giving me money!”

Anyway, that's beside the point now. We got over that little, annoying tax hurdle and we were off to Campania in Italy!

2 comments

Niall Dohertyhttps://ndoherty.com

Aug 24 2018 10:16 AM

I'm not bald, really. I just choose to keep my head shaved. So I could actually grow my hair out and swish it around if I wanted to. Just so you know :-P
Totally with you on the choice of work location. I usually prefer to work from "home" as well, and only occasionally work from cafes or shared office spaces. Even if I was super-rich I think I'd still prefer it that way.

I'm not bald, really. I just choose to keep my head shaved. So I could actually grow my hair out and swish it around if I wanted to. Just so you know :-P

Totally with you on the choice of work location. I usually prefer to work from "home" as well, and only occasionally work from cafes or shared office spaces. Even if I was super-rich I think I'd still prefer it that way.

Nade On The Move

Aug 24 2018 1:55 PM

Ah, I see! Sorry for the assumption that you had lost your hair so young there! ;) I am very happy with your hair choice then! Not the biggest fan of 'Swishers' You don't need all the hair swishing anyway!
Yes! I think everyone needs to test the waters, but there is no place like 'home' hehe.

Ah, I see! Sorry for the assumption that you had lost your hair so young there! I am very happy with your hair choice then! Not the biggest fan of 'Swishers' You don't need all the hair swishing anyway!

Yes! I think everyone needs to test the waters, but there is no place like 'home' hehe.